the epistles written by the apostles of the circumcision, Peter and John. They do not

describe the hope of the Body of Christ as revealed in Paul's prison letters. This church

as a heavenly company, has a heavenly hope, one that is realized in the heaven of

heavens where Christ is enthroned, and so the aspect of the Lord's return to the earth,

described in the early Thessalonian epistles, is not its hope and we must not import into

these epistles something that was going to be revealed through Paul the prisoner later on.

"Our gathering together unto Him" episunagoge.  This word contains the word

`synagogue' in its make-up and occurs only once more in the N.T. namely Heb. 10: 25.

In its verbal form it occurs seven times (Matt. 23: 37; 24: 31; Mark 1: 33; 13: 27;

Luke 12: 1; 13: 34). The `gathering together' here is a reference back to I Thess. 4: 17,

the `catching away' to meet the Lord in the air. The Apostle now puts his finger upon the

causes which were misleading and upsetting some of the saints. He is concerned lest they

are `shaken in' their minds and `troubled'. Saleuo, shaken, means to agitate, to cause to

totter like a reed (Matt. 11: 7), or the earth being shaken (Heb. 12: 26). Throeomai (from

throos, clamour, tumult) means `to be in a state of nervous excitement' (A.T. Robertson).

In both cases this state of mind played into the hands of the enemy who is always trying

to undermine the peace and the confidence of the believer. `Either by spirit, or by word,

or by epistle as from us.' Here were the means Satan was using--false revelation from

evil spirits, travestying the spiritual gifts of prophecy and utterance that had been directly

given to some by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:); or a supposed `word' or remark by the

Apostle; or a spurious epistle purporting to come from him. By these means the

assertion was made that `the day of the Lord is now present' (verse 2 R.V. with the best

Greek texts). Not `the day of Christ' as A.V. but the great prophetic Lord's Day of the

O.T., a day when God will intervene in this world's affairs in judgment. The first

occurrence of this prophetic period is in Isa. 2: 12, 17, 19 (see also Isa. 13: 6-13;

Jer. 46: 10; Joel 1: 15; 2: 1, 2; 3: 14; Amos 5: 18-20). Some commentators make the

mistake of using the day of the Lord and the Second Advent of Christ as interchangeable

terms. Consequently, because Paul here definitely teaches that the day of the Lord was

not yet present and that certain prophetic events must first take place, they assert that the

Second Coming of Christ was not imminent or possible, and that the Apostle did not

teach such a thing. But he most surely did, and so did Peter, James and John in their

epistles written during this period.

To these passages must be added the following in I Corinthians, Romans, and